"Ladies and gents, this is the moment you've waited for."

- Hugh Jackman

"I guess I'm going to have to get used to this."

- James McCaffrey in Viper

"You get used to it."

- Yui Ogura in Goblin Slayer

"How about we become monsters together and lay waste to this awful world? We'll wipe out everything, all traces of evil or sadness, and just destroy and destroy, until there's nothing left but dust... Don't you think that sounds nice?"

- That other show that's sort of like this show and has the same soundtrack composer

"If fate brings my death... I want to meet my end in your arms."

- Tachy being tacky

"Listen, man. I've raced with my legs broke, heart bruised, eyes poppin' out of my head like they're on springs. This is going to go away just like anything else."

- The Rooker

"There's something very familiar about all this."

- Biff Tannen

"1313131313"

- Kai's detonator in the final episode of Lexx

"I need a vacation."

- Terminator 2

"Please… just kill me already…"

The captured Meister Otome languished in misery on a bed of electrical cables slithering around her like giant insect mandibles. She was lying on—or more accurately, welded to—a generator powering Neo Schwarz's deadliest aerial weapon. The machinery trapping her was slowly tearing her apart on the microscopic level, pulling the nano-energy out of her blood cells for its own resources. The ship's control room was nearly pitch black, so all of its power could be diverted to torturing its captive.

Her would-be rescuer arrived only in time to witness her despairing final moments. The noble Otome ally was the only one on her team to make it this far, and she was the captive's only hope for last minute salvation. She had survived Tomomi Marguerite's onslaught of beam halberds and remote-controlled mini-drones on the bow of the Neo Schwarz ship, and by all measures that should have been the end of it. The vengeful red she-wolf was dead, and with her loss, the sinister Rat King died with her.

But Tomomi, that wayward disgrace to the Otome Order, left one final trump card that allowed her to strike out at her Sisters even after her death. The imprisoned Meister had been taunted by her, beaten and bloodied by her, covered in bruises with one eye swollen shut. And now her prisoner was unwillingly powering her ultimate weapon: the Vermithrax Ioniser.

The airship calibrated its automated targeting system high inside the planet's atmosphere. After several agonizing test firings on naval targets along Cardair's coast, the next laser charge was set to fire directly on the imperial capital.

The Otome prisoner writhed in pain as the power was greedily wrenched from her veins. Her ally could only watch in horror and regret. This was going to be her miserable demise, turned into nothing more than a fuel cell for this machine rigging her into a complete bastardization of how a Founder System was supposed to work. At least she managed to earn that credential before her mother, in a very twisted way.

No matter what happened next, the crown princess of Cardair would be the final sacrifice of this conflict.

"Tomomi was right. All I am is just a walking curse," Erstin Krau-xeku weakly gasped between her convulsions. Her pleading came with overwhelming sorrow and terror. "You have to kill me, before I kill anyone else. You can be the Lead Meister without me."

Her head sank in remorse as she squeezed her bloody eye shut to hold back her tears. The miracle princess, born from a sacred union that was only possible with Garderobe's intervention. She was cherished and beloved by everyone in Cardair. And now she being turned into a weapon for their complete annihilation. Her death was the only thing that could save them all.

"I just wish… I'm sorry… papa…" Erstin was in too much despair to even get the words out.

Roxy raised her glowing katana Element from her metallic white flight belt without saying a word. Erstin was almost within her reach when she found her in this miserable state, and the close-range specialist only needed to take another few steps forward so she was perfectly positioned to attack with her sword. Erstin winced on her bed-chair-coffin as she braced herself for the merciful strike.

The katana thrust through the darkness, passed gracefully under Erstin's left arm, and stabbed into the first layer of obsidian computer casing behind her back. That was as far the blade could go, and it never struck an inch of Erstin's body.

Roxy silently leaned over the machine. Her leather coattails were brushing Erstin's waist ring, her bare chin was brushing Erstin's whisker communicator, and the energy bands in her Robe's platinum epaulettes looked like they were forming a single circuit with the matching gold and blue components on Erstin's shoulders. The princess could feel her subordinate's breath gracing her ear.

"What the Hell are you doing, Rox?!" Erstin shouted with a sudden surge of anger that overcame her pain. "This thing will gobble you up just like it's doing to me!"

"Then it better get ready for some terrible indigestion, Ers," the Noble Splitting Platinum whispered in a sad, defeated voice. She couldn't bring herself to kill her closest friend.

"We're both cursed. You're everyone's favorite sparkly new Monica, and I'm the Sylvie you pulled into all of your bullshit. If I let you die here, how much longer am I going to last?" The depressing tone in Roxy's voice slightly changed to something more defiant. "Let's show the world how much trouble a couple of cursed maidens can cause."

Erstin closed her stinging eyes as she exhaled what would surely be one of her last breaths. She was weeping again—but these were more tears of joy rather than grief. At least they were together in the end. She moved her arms as best she could in their painful, tangled harnesses so she was holding her friend.

The nano-energy shedding off of the Malachite Robe gave Roxy's katana the rest of the charge it needed to pierce through the targeting system's central processor.

Metal violently sank through obsidian and silicon behind Erstin's back. She suddenly felt a thousand times lighter, and looser, as the dozens of cables binding her to the core suddenly lost power.

"Roxy… you sneaky little…" Erstin chuckled in a painful gasp.

Roxy fell backwards to the ship's floor, bringing Erstin's completely freed body on top of her. Both girls were dazed and took a couple seconds to regain their awareness. But now the Neo Schwarz weapon had been disconnected from its power source, and its targeting system was damaged beyond any use.

The countdown stopped. All that was left was a mass of sparking cables and exposed computer internals.

Roxy slowly climbed to her feet first, with Erstin eventually stumbling up and slouching over her like she was a glorified walking stick. She didn't mind. They stood silently and cried together in bewilderment for a while, before either one had the semblance to speak.

"I'm a mess. I feel like I could sleep for a week." The princess rested her bad eye against her faithful knight's soft red ponytail. She always wore her hair straight and long when she wasn't Materialised, but the ponytail was a nice addition in her Robed form.

"Your dad's probably in worse shape than you," Roxy snickered in an attempt to bring her friend some relief.

"He's used to it." Erstin snickered back as she weakly dragged the heels of her Robe like her feet were still in shackles.

Roxy stretched her arm over her princess's back, brushed her charcoal brown hair, and playfully tapped her gloves against the Malachite Robe's electronic ears.

"Do you still want to be a Meister after all of this?" she asked with a hint of hesitation. After everything they had been through together, she could still lose her friend to retirement.

"What? And miss all the fun of having pretty ladies rescue me from scary mechanical dragon-things?" Erstin's one good eye playfully shimmered as her swollen cheeks contorted into an attempt at a smile. "You're the whole reason I'm here, Rox. I wanna keep doing this as long as you can."

"The feeling's mutual." Roxy nodded modestly with reassurance. The princess gave her the only answer she needed.

Erstin slowly turned her head on her creaking neck and glanced toward the damaged technological abomination that had nearly taken her life. It was completely out of order, but it was still mostly intact.

"So what do we do about this thing?" The princess asked her most trusted advisor.

"One more Dance of Rose Thorns?" Roxy started to smirk with encouragement.

"Dance of Rose Thorns." The sore joints in Erstin's neck nodded in complete agreement.

The dazzling combination attack of the Imperial Tigress and her Mistress of Ceremonies. Roxy ran toward the dying mechanical abomination with her arms barely able to raise her katana over her head, while Erstin fought to keep her balance on her sprained feet. As Roxy took to the air in a gymnastic somersault and got ready to perform a downward slash with her katana Element, Erstin summoned her kusarigama Element and swirled the chain over her head like a lasso in a wind cyclone. When she hurled her weapon toward Roxy, it wrapped around the katana in mid-swing, turning it into a barbed metal stem with the sickle forming a jagged blossom.

When Roxy cleaved her vile target in half, it was with the combined strength of both Otomes. Her sword sliced all the way through the hull of the ship.

The sky over Cardair's palace suddenly burst into a vibrant green haze. The otherworldly explosion could only mean Neo Schwarz's flagship had been destroyed, but no one on the palace terrace was celebrating yet. They lost contact with the Meister representing House Monique an hour ago, and no one had heard from the Meister representing House Krau-xeku in days. They were waiting with bated breath for any kind of news. Were their lead Otomes coming home as victors… or would they have to defend the royal city from another invasion by themselves?

The empress, her two younger daughters and two sons, and three Otome Royal Guards watched the skies with forlorn expressions. The emperor was seated with his mangled legs propped up in a wheelchair, bearing the exact same injuries his Otome had endured.

No one spoke in those first few dreadful minutes. But no matter how hopeless it appeared, Emperor Kazuya was certain his daughter was still alive. If she had died in her Robe, he would've died with her.

After what felt like an eternity of silence, the Malachite Master signet flickered weakly on his hand. He nearly stumbled out of his seat in a panic.

"Erstin? Erstin?! Can you hear me?"

"Relax, papa," her daughter's tired voice chimed from his ring. She sounded like her youthful playful self, but extremely worse for wear. "Roxy's with me. We're coming down… but it might be a rough landing."

The three Meister guards watched the skies for the incoming units. There was Lily Claudel, Sister Rosalie's daughter from Florince who was ecstatic to be one of the first members on Cardair's new international team. There was Ikaho Huit, Sister Shiho's prideful daughter who started off a little hostile over the idea of putting her kingdom's safety in the hands of foreigners, but the other girls managed to calm her down. They helped her figure out how to use her devotion to Cardair for the common good, before she became another Tomomi. And then there was Inghild, who was just Inghild. The niece of the late Sister Fiar, her penchant for throwing herself in harm's way to protect her beloved Sisters was even worse than Erstin's.

The skirt and cape ribbons on Ikaho's Robe slowly waved upward like underwater tendrils, using their sensors to track everything in the sky. She was first one to detect "the gorgeous samurai and the cross-breed" (That was her way of describing Roxy and Erstin). She gave her teammates their coordinates to retrieve them.

Their distant silver and white specks became visible in the bright afternoon sky a few seconds later. Lily and Inghild launched off the terrace and caught them at low altitude before they slammed into the concrete. When all four Otomes landed, they looked like two powerful and elegantly dressed superheroines hauling around a couple sacks of potatoes.

Erstin's smaller brothers and sisters gathered around her to congratulate her and welcome her back. Her mother remained silent, but her small relieved sigh said a thousand happy things. Her father sank back into his seat, shaking his head with cheerful disbelief.

"Sorry for staying out so late, Your Majesty." Roxy said the to the empress—her supreme commander in the Sisterhood—with her head bowed in deep admiration, and in deep exhaustion. Her voice was mostly apologetic, with a hint of playful sarcasm. "But I brought your cub home in one piece."

Empress Akane dove toward Roxy with joyous tears and hugged her like she was another daughter. She wasn't going to lose Erstin the second time around.

Author's notes:

Stukasa said I should write more Next Gen Otome fanfics, so here's another Next Gen Otome fanfic.

Ending theme: "Eternal Wind" by Hiroko Miroguchi (It's a pun. It plays off of Akane and her descendants being the wind magic users. I started thinking about that song again when I saw a Reddit thread yesterday called "F91 discourse in a nutshell.")

Oh wait a minute. Holy crap. There's an Aki Misato cover of Eternal Wind, and she actually re-arranged it in the style of her HiME ending themes and that Calling song from Muv-Luv Chronicles? Nevermind then. Let's just go with that.

I've written three different stories now with Rat Boy being some sort of character, but I still haven't given him an official name. One of the fan theories going around when Mai HiME was airing was Nagi's name might be a shortened form of Izanagi, and Mashiro might be his Izanami. Building off that idea, I almost-sorta-kinda considered giving Rat Boy the name "Yomi" in this story, as a shortened form of Tsukoyomi, one of Izanagi's mythological children. (I just wanted a shortened version of a Japanese deity who descended from Izanagi, and I thought "Sanoo" sounded too dumb. "Rasu" might work, though.)

Is anyone else kinda feeling like the "Welcome Back" Gunbuster ending scene? Is it just me? Yeah?

I'm picturing Tomomi's Meister Robe in this story as: "What if the Nightingale from Beltorchika's Children was a Variable Geo waitress?" Bulky alien-jet-themed magical girl whose ass needs its own landing gear. Other sources of inspiration include: Gary Oldman's red muscle suit from Dracula '92. And yes, she still has Lacus's VA like her mom. At this point it's irony, dohoho.

You'll need to read "Roppongi Shinjuu" (and possibly "Flying Battery Zone Act 2") if you're confused about the lore for what a "Tomomi" is and what a "Rat King" is. This is another one of those "Definitely not taking place in the same universe, but sharing a lot of the same ideas" fanfics. I should also probably point out that the "Erstin" in FBZA2 is a slightly different "Erstin." The first time I wrote her character in FBZA2, I envisioned her in her early teen years, to emphasize she's a very innocent Arika-aged kid thrown into the middle of Cardair's medieval war. In pretty much every appearance since FBZA2 (including this new story), she still a first-time Meister, but I re-designed her so she's an older teenager in her traditional Meister graduate years. I think "Gotta make her more like Monica" took over how I write her once I started her spin-off stories.

It's kinda cool how I have an OC I created for a fanfic named after a Sonic 3 level, and the de-facto ending to her war arc has a lot of similarities to that Sonic Heroes song that was partially an updated version of the Sonic 3 final boss music. I didn't plan it out that way. It's another one of those "just kinda happened" things. (You probably have no idea what I'm talking about. You should look for a YouTube video called "Jun Senoue, you sneaky bastard." And pay close attention to the lyrics in the vocal clip.)

The idea for Akane naming her first daughter Erstin was "conceived" when I was writing "Honeymoon Hijinks," but all the details about her character were created for FBZA2, a.k.a. "How much Teito Moyu Part 1 would you like in your Mai Otome? Can you hear the Koda Kumi music playing in the background yet? How about now?" However, the storytelling really comes around full circle if you assume the Erstin in this story was conceived in "Nothing Nowhere Never at Any Time." :)

The first three paragraphs of this story are deliberately trying to confuse the hell out of you. Someone's definitely getting Yamashiro'd, but it's really vague who it is.

I've always described the Muv-Luv Total Eclipse TV show as "It's like watching the two-part pilot episode of Viper and then jumping straight to season 2." And I've always described the first season of Viper as "It's like The Untouchables got in a car crash with Total Recall and the first paramedic to arrive at the scene was La Femme Nikita." I would probably describe this fanfic as "It's like someone made a pizza out of the Muv-Luv Total Eclipse pilot and Madoka Magica, and the delivery girl was Adolescence of Utena, or that episode of Futurama where it looks like Fry died but it's actually Leela in a coma and Fry's ghost keeps telling her to wake up." Maybe it's that Futurama episode driving the Utena Car.

I guess you could say post-reconstruction Cardair is the cool new place where the runaways... run the night. nudge nudge wink wink

Did I ever tell U my favorite costume in Stellar Blade is the one that kinda looks like she's wearing Akane's catsuit with a 1940s bomber jacket over it? That's what I have equipped all the time when I'm playing. (Ever since I wrote "Roppongi Shinjuu" a year and a half ago, I've been thinking "How do you combine a cybernetic pilot bodysuit-type-thing with Kasumi Yoshikawa's French highwaywoman coat? … Ah! That's how you do it!")

Roxy's shoulder-armor-stripe-wire things are either details molded on top of her jacket, or her jacket has little windows cut out around her shoulders so you can see her base bodysuit with the armor epaulettes underneath. I've always been wondering about this since I wrote "Roppongi Shinjuu." Now I've come up with two practical solutions.

Heyyy. Roxy wears a fluttery French overcoat bolted to her Robe, just because I thought it was cool when Kasumi did the gymnastic leotard + French jacket combo. And Roxy has a strong affection toward the royal ladies from Florince, which is the Otome universe stand-in for France. Do you think there's some accidental subtext there? It's also pretty accidentally-cool how I picture the foundation for Roxy's Robe being a Tozama-class Teito Moyu pilot suit, and the Teito Moyu pilot suits are repurposed Schwarzesmarken pilot suits in Muv-Luv continuity, and Schwarkesmarken is a German battalion from the 80s, and Cardair in Mai Otome is a fictional fusion-country of Medieval Germany/Rome/100 Years War England.

I'm pretty sure I've told U numerous times one of my favorite 80s fantasy movies is Dragonslayer. (Erstin Kx almost got Elspeth'd.)

I went with the "Ioniser" spelling instead of "Ionizer" because it's a negative counterpart to how Otomes "Materialise."

Just repeating some basic casting choices from FBZA2: Roxy has Rin Tohsaka and Yummyshiro's VA, because she's a design hybrid of Rin and Yams, but she thinks she's Kasumi Yoshizawa (just like Kasumi Yoshizawa thinks she's Kasumi Yoshizawa). Lily has Shimako's VA, because her mom conveniently already has Shimako's VA. Ikaho has Izumi's VA (Squid Girl, lol). Inghild has Inghild Bronikowski's VA, because the Inghild in this setting is literally the Inghild that I directly imported from Schwarzesmarken. Somewhere floating in the background of this setting is Maiko. She's Mai's daughter named after the word for apprentice geishas, who operates independently from all other Otome teams (continuing the traditions of her mom), and she has Yui's VA, because Mai always had Yui's VA. Erstin Kx has the same VA as Anya from Spy X Family, but I didn't pick her for that reason. That's just her most popular role. I picked her because Anya's VA was trained in real life by Junko Iwao, Akane's VA. See, I'm trying to be extra-meta here. (Additional note: If any of my imaginary casting annoys you, just remember I had 70-year-old Shuichi Ikeda voicing the main character's teenage son in that Fushigi Yuugi fanfic.)

New design feature I decided on shortly before I wrote this story: Roxy has her hair wound up in a ponytail when she's transformed, and she has a very straight hime cut when she's not transformed. This can be read as: She's Sumire in her casual form, and then she symbolically transforms into Kasumi. Or she's "Yamashiro Dyed Her Hair Red" in her casual form, continuing the trend where Monica was "Yamashiro Dyed Her Hair Silver."

Roxy's little metaphor about Erstin Kx being the new Monica and Roxy being the new Sylvie is really interesting the longer you think about it. Erstin Kx is actually from Florince on her mother's side (i.e. her Otome side). Traditionally, this would make her the Sylvie successor. And Roxy's family is completely from Cardair, which should mean she's the Monica-successor.

Hmm. Do you think Roxy should have Sumire's glasses in her casual form? I'm thinking about it. 'Cuz if she occasionally has glasses that come off when she Materialises, that would make her a pretty good contender for the symbolic Next Gen Chie when you put her beside the symbolic Next Gen Akane.

Do you remember that running theme in late season 1 and early season 2 episodes of Power Rangers where there were a bunch of different villain plans to steal the Green Power coin and command the Dragonzord into attacking Angel Grove, or use the Green Ranger powers to create Lord Zedd's own evil Ranger team? Yeah? Yeah.

Wheelchair Kazu-kun was an idea I had for a prospective sequel to FBZA2. It would have been somewhat of a cop-out where it's revealed he was only "gravely wounded" during the assassination in FBZA2, and he was unconscious the whole time everyone thought he was dead. But because he was severely wounded and the anonymous assassin used poisoned darts that messed up his nervous system, he becomes permanently wheelchair-bound. He's physically too weak to be anyone's life-linked contract Master, and he semi-retires from being emperor so his kids can have more control. I knew right away I don't want to write a sequel that "undoes" the first chapter of FBZA2, but the idea for Wheelchair Kazu-kun stuck with me. In this story, he's just temporarily disabled from sharing Erstin's injuries. (I'm never writing a sequel to FBZA2. Keep on speculating, dweebs.)

I really like these little projects where I have like five pages of production notes, and every now and then a fanfic or two happens. I'm really using FFnet for its intended purpose right here.

Some basic backstory for anyone reading this fanfic and wondering how this scene was set up: Uhhh... let's see. The Otome team handled all the big infantry fighting near the surface of the city while Roxy went ahead into higher orbit. Erstin was captured a couple days before this story takes place, after her team tried to have a pre-emptive final boss battle with Tomomi and they failed. Or maybe Erstin intentionally gave herself up while trying to spare the rest of the girls from a crushing defeat (This strengthens the Elspeth comparison.) Roxy reached the enemy base by herself and killed all the Slave robots and assorted villain lackeys in sight, because she's just a badass like that when she senses her precious Erstin is in trouble. And then she barely defeated the Evil Final Boss Magical Girl ominously waiting for her above the bridge of the ship, which also kills off Rat Boy in the captain's seat, as per the rules of his contract. Chie still has a command position in Aries, and she sent some of her new grunt Otomes to help out with the city defense. And 30something-year-old Arika probably gave additional aid with Mashiro's approval, but like in a "I'm just here as a cameo so I don't steal the spotlight from the new heroines" sort of way. If there were any Otome deaths on the Cardair side, they were just rando Meisters assigned to some desk clerks or something. I mean they were so scrubby that the Inghild expy ended up outliving them, lol. I just made this all up two days after I wrote the fanfic. I hope it sounds feasible.

Was the Rayflower song "Rasen no Piece" playing in the background while Yamashiro's VA was having an extravagant samurai sword battle on the deck of the ship with Lacus's VA and her endless torrent of red crab-like Funnel-type weapons? Oh yeah. You better believe the Rayflower song "Rasen no Piece" was playing in the background while Yamashiro's VA was having an extravagant samurai sword battle on the deck of the ship with Lacus's VA and her endless torrent of red crab-like Funnel-type weapons. And I can definitely do that without overusing the song, because this story is taking place in a completely different universe from "Tetris Maintenance." I'm almost inclined to say the song fits better as battle music in this story than it does in "Tetris Maintenance." Goro Taniguchi wrote lyrics that are about dying autumn leaves struggling to have a short moment to shine in the "dazzling wind" (durrhurhurhurr, there's Akane's motif again) in their fleeting transient existence, and the setting of this story revolves around Akane's daughter (which the entire idea of Akane and Kazu-kun surviving long enough to have a kid is already an "opposing fate" thing to begin with) being the Sailor Moon-esque leader of a team of completely doomed Muv-Luv characters reincarnated into a timeline where they're given a chance to actually succeed at their jobs.

Parental backstories I just came up with: Rosalie retired and got married in Florince after she found a fiancé she truly wanted to settle down with (resulting in Lily). Remember, she was already retirement-age at the beginning of Akane's graduation arc in the show, so she's had a relatively long Meister career. When Garderobe authorized Akane to retire, Rosalie just thought the time was right for her as well. Maybe she caught the bouquet at Akane's wedding. Shiho retired early like Akane, but not because she was caught up in some mushy sentimental romance like Akane. In Shiho's case, marriage was a convenient excuse for her to move back to Cardair and stay there. She's a domineering comic relief housewife who's married to some court treasury dweeb (resulting in Mecha Squidgirl Who Speaks With The Voice Of Lt. Izumi Noto, Lucky Chloe, Cure Peace, And Modern Sailor Mercury). Mai finally reunited with her long lost love, the Otome-verse version of Yuuichi, and settled down to have her own family (resulting in Maiko). This provides a happy ending for Mai's tragic romance arc, which was always mirrored with Akane's arc in the Otome TV show. Meanwhile, Tomoe went to an abandoned cemetery in Romania and laid low with a feral Hellhound to create the monster named Tomomi, or whatever. Maybe she hitched up with the creepy art guy from HiME, who also running for president in Aries in Otome Zwei. Just fanwank something.

This combination of Muv-Luv-characters-juxtaposed-in-a-different-setting totally makes sense, because if you look up a post called "The great mystery we will never solve" on the Muv-Luv subreddit, you'd know Izumi was always omnipresent.

I just noticed Erstin Kx is a moron who holds her kusarigama backwards. She grips the chain part and throws the scythe part. Eh... it's a magical-techno-futuristic kusarigama, so I'll just say it's designed to work like that. (This is getting into "My Mighty Strike Freedom is best Mighty Rising Freedom because reverse-grip samurai sword" territory.)

Who is Roxy's contract Master? I never had a set person in mind the whole time I was writing this. But now I feel like I accidentally heavily implied Akane might be her Master. Otomes usually reflect the traits and personalities of the Masters they life-link to, so they're symbolically an extension of their Master. And I'm just thinking, Akane and Kazuya's function is to be the "perfect couple" who combine the cultures of Cardair and Florince, and they fix problems through their compassion and unity. And you see that being echoed with the way Erstin and Roxy interact as Otomes. It's cute. It also means anyone who attacks Cardair needs to defeat two Otomes if they want to completely usurp the royal family, but those two Otomes are also closely dependent on each other. I think that's what the cool kids these days call "game balancing."

I hope I didn't come off sounding unintentionally creepy by saying the more I think about, I think Akane is the best option for Roxy's Master. I don't want to sound like that Fatal Frame 5 guy who said something like "The more I thought it about, it seemed perfectly natural to have Miku give up on life and have an incest marriage with her dead brother's ghost."

If you interpret Roxy as the Akane-extension and Erstin Kx as the Kazu-kun-extension, you could say the double-inverted plot twist of this fanfic is Garderobe's desperate plan to save Cardair actually worked. They ended up creating a successor Otome to Akane, who's just like Akane and fights for all of the same values as Akane, and she's a reliable battle-hardened mega-warrior. It's just not the successor they had planned out, but Akane's ACTUAL daughter is still an inseparable part of the super-badass Otome's development.

Does it count as yuri doujinshi if both participants of the yuri-ing are your original creations and only the universe their story takes place in is trademarked?